Overview

In this Reign of Kings beginners guide, I’ll run you through the basics of what the game is about and how to get started. If you know nothing of the game, the player is dropped into the world with the intention of surviving the harsh medieval landscape. In order to do this, players must hunt wildlife, mine resources, build structures, and craft weapons and armor. Besides foraging, the premise of Reign of Kings isn’t simply survival but to also rule. The game presents players with a wide variety of items that they can use to build a vast and powerful kingdom. Players also have the ability to capture and hold other players in order to get what they want, while also deciding the fate of the kingdom by controlling land and taxing where they see fit. Being a good or bad king is what most people strive for.

Starting Out

Every player when arriving in Reign of Kings lands on the beach. The only items you’ll have available are a club, a bandage and a holdable torch. You can access these by bringing up your inventory (pressing i) and drag these onto your action bar. To the far right of the action bar, as number 0, is your orifice. This is where you can literally put an item up your bottom in case you’re captured (I’m really not kidding).

Also on the inventory screen to the right is a list of blueprints that you can build. You’ll need to gather resources such as wood and clay to make the variety of things, but some of the starting items such as basic armor are easily made.

In the lower right of the screen there are three bars. The top and coloured green is your stamina. This will deplete as you swing your club. The bar below that is thirst and the final bar is hunger. Both of these will deplete over time and it’s important that you find water and food as quickly as possible.

Collecting Resources

Your club is both a weapon and your resource gathering tool. Once you’ve equipped it, you can use it on just about anything to gather that resource. The amount of resource you gather is displayed in the bottom right. If you are on someone elses land and they have a tax active, you’ll also lose an amount to the item you’re harvesting. This is displayed in red and is also in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

Most plants, rocks and trees can be harvested either with physical interaction by pressing E or through hitting the object with your club. Eventually you’ll want to upgrade to a proper harvesting tool such as a Stone Hatchet as these allow you to gather resources much quicker.

The King and Tax Levels

If a player is King, they’ll be able to set taxation levels and as you and others harvest, anything you accomplish that has a physical quantity can be taxed. To see who is King and what their tax rate is, just bring up your inventory and in the upper right hand side of the screen it will tell you.

If you want to be King, you need to dethrone the existing one. You can do this by finding and killing him or travelling to the main castle and claiming the throne. Be careful, though, it will likely be heavily fortified.

Survival

All players start with a bottle that they can fill with water so I’d recommend you head inland and find a stream. Submerging in the water and holding E will allow you to fill the bottle. As for food, there’s usually plenty of berries in the countryside on bushes or you can create a javelin from wood to hunt Deer and Bears. Using javelin’s is probably the easiest and quickest way to hunt wildlife because you can make lots of them quickly and you can throw them from a far. Once you’ve killed an animal, hit it with your club to gather meat and other resources. You must remember to cook the meat however. You can do this by creating a Campfire from wood. Finally, you should always try to log out somewhere safe. The best bet is to make a simple shelter using wood or to hide in thick woodland. Your sleeping body will always stay in the game world, even when logged off.

Other Tips and Tricks

1. Always try to avoid other players. You can be killed easily at the start, so it's best to be by yourself.

2. Flax is in demand by most early crafting recipies, I've found a good location for it is on the beach or off Bears.

3. Upgrading your equipment to a proper Hatchet will make gathering resources so much faster - you should prioritise this.

4. Bears are much easier to kill that Deer because they'll come at you where as Deer will run away. Make sure you peddle backwards while using your javelins and you'll be fine.

5. Stone is hard to find but is commonly located on cliff sides as rocks you pick up.